IFTTT and Model S

[beeeerock]

IFTTT just sent me an advertising email that indicates BMW is now on board... and they are able to serve in the 'THIS' side of the function, not just the 'THAT'... I'd really like Tesla to support the THIS, so we can trigger actions by location, etc... (turn up the heat at home if the car travels through this fenced area... etc).

 

[Andyw2100]

I wanted to follow up on the post I opened this thread with. This is potentially drifting a hair off-topic, but not really, as the end result is that I was able to accomplish the goal I mentioned in the opening post, though not with IFTTT, which is why I say it's a bit off-topic.

I received a PM suggesting that if I used an android phone (which I do) I could probably accomplish what I was trying to accomplish (excerpt from opening post below) using Tasker. I messed around with that for longer than I'd like to admit, and bought an inexpensive plugin for Tasker called Autolocation. I'm not sure if it was because the way I was trying to use Tasker and AutoLocation together wasn't working right or if it was a lack of support documentation, but in any case, I eventually threw the towel in on Tasker, and switched to a similar program I saw a recommendation for called Automagic. I found the interface and support documentation for Automagic much easier to work with for someone like me, who does not have programming background.

The bottom line is that in a fraction of the time I had wasted messing around with Tasker I had my Automagic "Flow" doing exactly what I wanted it to do. (See below.)

I then wrote another "Flow" to read me incoming text messages when I'm in the car, complete with an announcement of who it is from, and dialog boxes for whether or not I want to hear it, whether or not I want it repeated, etc.

This software is really easy to use, and I feel as if I have just scraped the tip of the iceberg with respect to what it can do.

I'll start a new thread to discuss Automagic and Model S, so as not to take this thread to far off-topic. I'll come back and post the link when I've done that.

New thread: Automagic Premium and Model S

I actually thought of something I think I'd like to do, that I think should be doable, but having no experience with IFTTT, etc. I'm not certain.

I occasionally forget to take my cellphone with me when exiting the Model S. I thought the "If" could possibly be based on the phone sensing a disconnection from the car's bluetooth, in combination with a complete lack of motion. (One potential problem with that is I don't know how quickly the car drops the bluetooth connection with the phone when the car is turned off if there is no call in progress. Anyone know that?)

Assuming we could come up with an appropriate "If" trigger, I think some of the rest is easy, and some may be more difficult. The easy part would be to send e-mail or text messages saying, "Name left his phone in the car." In my case I'd probably send my wife a text, in case we were together, and myself an email, in case I had left my phone in the car and come in the house. What would be even better, but harder, would be if IFTTT could interface with the Tesla API, and make the car honk the horn. In fact, if the Tesla API is to be involved, the "If" trigger could probably be improved upon by also involving the car's doors becoming locked and the car being in park.

The above is just one recipe I think would be useful. I'm sure many of you are already doing lots of interesting things with IFTTT and your Teslas. So let's get this discussion going!

 

[lg_golfs]

Andyw2100 -- It is hard to find Tesla apps in the IFTTT search box because they arent tagged by the "Tesla" name. I just found this one, which is marked under "Numerous".
If the battery charge on my Tesla Model S goes below 25%, turn the lights in my garage red by numerous - IFTTT
I havent reached out to Numerous yet, but it stands to reason that if he can have the red light turn on in his garage when he is below 25%, then he can do anything else that hooks into the tesla api (like turn heat on etc). And as you and i discovered from another chat, that would allow me to turn the heat on with my voice-activated Amazon echo, which works with IFTTT! It still doesnt solve my need for a timer to turn on the heat everyday at 830 am, though.

I bought the HUE light bulbs and pestered the snot out of Numerous to fix this script. After a month or so. I gave up.

If someone gets it to work, please let me know. I still to this day forget to plug my car in more often than I would like to admit.

 

[Andyw2100]

If someone gets it to work, please let me know. I still to this day forget to plug my car in more often than I would like to admit.

You may want to check out the EVMote thread. Using that service you can set things up so that if you forget to plug in you get a reminder sent to you. There is a free service and a premium service, but I believe the notification if you forget to plug in is still part of the free service.

EVmote App

Edit: It appears I was mistaken, and the charging reminder is part of the premium service, which I don't have. I was confused because as an early adopter, that aspect of my free service has not been cut off yet. I apologize.

 

[beeeerock]

I bought the HUE light bulbs and pestered the snot out of Numerous to fix this script. After a month or so. I gave up.

If someone gets it to work, please let me know. I still to this day forget to plug my car in more often than I would like to admit.

I gave Numerous a try... it was hit and miss, mostly miss. I haven't heard from it in a few days. My impression is that it can't reliably talk to Tesla... is that what you figured?

 

[smilepak]

What I need is the ability to notify me when at home, my car isn't plugged in. I find myself forgetting a few times only to find out the next day I need power [emoji22]

 

[Andyw2100]

What I need is the ability to notify me when at home, my car isn't plugged in. I find myself forgetting a few times only to find out the next day I need power [emoji22]

Visible Tesla can do that for you for free, if you can run Visible Tesla 24 X 7.

EVMote can also do it, but now it's just the pay version that can, as the free version no longer supports that functionality.

 

[hans]

I have managed to integrate IFTTT to my Tesla using the IFTTT Maker channel and webhooks to some custom code. I am still struggling to figure out a good use case that fits within IFTTT limited "recipe" capabilities. Perhaps A "DO" button to start/stop the charger or climate system? If anyone can come up with a use case that works with IFTTT I am willing to explore implementing it. Unfortunately IFTTT can't do basic things like "IF (SOC < 90%) THEN start charger" because it doesn't have basic numeric comparisons. Every use case I think of keep requiring enough external stuff that it's seems useless to put IFTTT in the middle.

 

[Andyw2100]

I have managed to integrate IFTTT to my Tesla using the IFTTT Maker channel and webhooks to some custom code. I am still struggling to figure out a good use case that fits within IFTTT limited "recipe" capabilities. Perhaps A "DO" button to start/stop the charger or climate system? If anyone can come up with a use case that works with IFTTT I am willing to explore implementing it. Unfortunately IFTTT can't do basic things like "IF (SOC < 90%) THEN start charger" because it doesn't have basic numeric comparisons. Every use case I think of keep requiring enough external stuff that it's seems useless to put IFTTT in the middle.

This may be a bit of a kluge, but here's a possibility.

I posted a link to a new thread a few posts up, talking about using Automagic Premium as a tool.

Automagic Premium and Model S

It is similar to Tasker, so I imagine the kluge I am about to describe would work in Tasker, and other similar products as well.

Conceivably someone could use a combination of Automagic or Tasker and an IFTTT recipe or a Do Button to accomplish some things. Automagic and Tasker and the apps in that category are flexible enough to do all sorts of things, including running another app once any number of conditions are met. So someone could, for example, set a geofence around their house, using Automagic, and have it run an IFTTT recipe x minutes after entering the geofence to send a text or email reminder if not plugged in.

Similarly any number of conditions could be set in Automagic or Tasker for when cabin heating or cooling should start, and then a Do button could be used to start heating or cooling. The same could be done for charging. (It just wouldn't be based on any information being returned from the car.)

So I think there are possibilities.

 

[beeeerock]

I have managed to integrate IFTTT to my Tesla using the IFTTT Maker channel and webhooks to some custom code. I am still struggling to figure out a good use case that fits within IFTTT limited "recipe" capabilities. Perhaps A "DO" button to start/stop the charger or climate system? If anyone can come up with a use case that works with IFTTT I am willing to explore implementing it. Unfortunately IFTTT can't do basic things like "IF (SOC < 90%) THEN start charger" because it doesn't have basic numeric comparisons. Every use case I think of keep requiring enough external stuff that it's seems useless to put IFTTT in the middle.

Is it safe to say that the webhooks you're using are doing what software like Visible Tesla or EVmote can do - at least the basic stuff? Like honk the horn, unlock the doors etc? Or are you able to extract information like GPS coordinates? I see that some of the software apps out there are able to pull a wide range of streamed data from Tesla, but should I assume that that level of detail is or isn't available via webhooks? I have no expertise in programming, so much of this is unintelligible for me... web searches haven't offered up anything that can explain this at my level.

Looking at the IFTTT options and also a quick install of the trial version of Automagic, it strikes me that there really aren't enough Tesla functions visible or triggerable by the end user. Using the location information from your phone (Automagic) and confirming its presence in the car by the existence of the Bluetooth connection, would allow you to trigger geofence functions. But your phone would need to be in there. If someone else was driving the car, you'd have to copy your recipes to them, or just not have functionality unless you're in the car.

I would really like to see Tesla incorporate some of the basics like BMW evidently has, via IFTTT... or anything that could be leveraged by you guys with programming knowledge.

Seeing the news reports of some recent Musk statements, it would appear that Tesla is looking at how mobile devices could be mirrored on the big screen... instead of opening up the system for non-Tesla apps. I suppose that might be useful to some people, but unless the connection to the phone would allow more data to flow in both directions, it probably wouldn't be of use to me.

Given that this car is really leading the competition in so many high-tech ways, it seems to me that extending the abilities and staying ahead of the pack is extremely important.

 

[hans]

Is it safe to say that the webhooks you're using are doing what software like Visible Tesla or EVmote can do - at least the basic stuff? Like honk the horn, unlock the doors etc? Or are you able to extract information like GPS coordinates? I see that some of the software apps out there are able to pull a wide range of streamed data from Tesla, but should I assume that that level of detail is or isn't available via webhooks? I have no expertise in programming, so much of this is unintelligible for me... web searches haven't offered up anything that can explain this at my level.

The app I wrote gets all the streaming data from the car in realtime and also polls every minute on the same APIs used by Visible Tesla, EVmote, etc so it can get GPS coordinates of the car, speed, soc, charging state, climate data, etc. I wrote it such that the outputs are modular so I can send/receive a web hook to IFTTT (or anywhere else), store any of the data in a local database, send the data to Amazon IOT Web Service, publish the data to any third party, write the data to a file, or display it in a web page. For fun, I am building a Raspberry Pi-based Tesla Monitoring/Console station using a Raspberry Pi 2 with a 7" Touch Screen.

I would think the value of IFTTT would be in the trigger side since there are so many possible inputs. For example is someone wanted to create a hashtag to tweet that would trigger their car to do something, or create a "flik" button to turn the car charger on/off, or use Amazon Echo to say "Alex, turn my Tesla air conditioning on".

 

[paco3791]

Looking into specifically what I want to do and I think I'm going to try Node Red. I was able to find connections to both Tesla's API and my utilities (comed) hourly pricing program.

http://nodered.org/

 

[jayman]

I have managed to integrate IFTTT to my Tesla using the IFTTT Maker channel and webhooks to some custom code. I am still struggling to figure out a good use case that fits within IFTTT limited "recipe" capabilities. Perhaps A "DO" button to start/stop the charger or climate system? If anyone can come up with a use case that works with IFTTT I am willing to explore implementing it. Unfortunately IFTTT can't do basic things like "IF (SOC < 90%) THEN start charger" because it doesn't have basic numeric comparisons. Every use case I think of keep requiring enough external stuff that it's seems useless to put IFTTT in the middle.

I've tied your tesla programs into my home automation software called homeseer. I basically have a script that takes the last line from the streaming.out file and places that data into "devices" that homeseer can read. Then, I can do whatever I want based on whatever conditions one wants. Since I have echo and siri tied in with homeseer I can also control my tesla with those. I live in chicago so I've gotten in the habit of telling siri to turn on the car when I'm going to leave soon so it's nice and toasty. If my car doesn't have a charge of 200 miles at 8:05 pm I get alerts on my phone and the speakers in my house. I also have it automatically warm up for me in the am when an echo alarm is set using Iftt but that's pretty much the only thing I use iftt for...

 

[Nismode]

I have managed to integrate IFTTT to my Tesla using the IFTTT Maker channel and webhooks to some custom code. I am still struggling to figure out a good use case that fits within IFTTT limited "recipe" capabilities. Perhaps A "DO" button to start/stop the charger or climate system? If anyone can come up with a use case that works with IFTTT I am willing to explore implementing it. Unfortunately IFTTT can't do basic things like "IF (SOC < 90%) THEN start charger" because it doesn't have basic numeric comparisons. Every use case I think of keep requiring enough external stuff that it's seems useless to put IFTTT in the middle.

Maybe there's a way to tap Numerous into it. Have the numerous app show the SOC as a number, than have IFTTT trigger an action based on that number.

 

[jayman]

Maybe there's a way to tap Numerous into it. Have the numerous app show the SOC as a number, than have IFTTT trigger an action based on that number.

Numerous looks cool. I wonder how often they are logging into your account. I worry about having too many things logging in at once and getting my account locked although I've never heard of it happening...

 

[hans]

Looking into specifically what I want to do and I think I'm going to try Node Red. I was able to find connections to both Tesla's API and my utilities (comed) hourly pricing program.

http://nodered.org/

Let me know if you need any help with Node Red. I have done a fair amount of work with it including writing a few plugins such as "node-red-contrib-teslams". So far it's my favorite IOT platform.

Numerous looks cool. I wonder how often they are logging into your account. I worry about having too many things logging in at once and getting my account locked although I've never heard of it happening...

Just learned that Numerous Shutting Down on May 1

 

[R²B]

Is this possible with IFFFT?

"If it's 10:00pm and my Tesla is not plugged in, send me a notification"

 

[Nismode]

Let me know if you need any help with Node Red. I have done a fair amount of work with it including writing a few plugins such as "node-red-contrib-teslams". So far it's my favorite IOT platform.



Just learned that Numerous Shutting Down on May 1

I saw that last night. Such a shame, its been great since I came upon it. Hopefully they introduce a paid version, I'd be more than willing to purchase it.

 

[paco3791]

Let me know if you need any help with Node Red. I have done a fair amount of work with it including writing a few plugins such as "node-red-contrib-teslams". So far it's my favorite IOT platform.

Thanks! My plan is to get a Rasp. Pi to install it on and run that 24/7 for this type of application. Just waiting on the Rasp. Pi. official touchscreen display to come off back order since there are some other media hosting things I have in mind if I'm going to set it up anyway.

 

[Andyw2100]

Is this possible with IFFFT?

"If it's 10:00pm and my Tesla is not plugged in, send me a notification"

I was hoping someone else would answer you, as my experience with IFTTT is pretty limited. But I'll take a shot.

I do not believe you can do that with IFTTT on its own. As someone explained to me early in this thread, IFTTT can have only one "If" trigger. There is no way to combine two conditions into one recipe.

As you probably know, there are lots of ways to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish. IFTTT just isn't one of them.